Meet the RE Tech Founder: Ethan Lieber from Latchel

In our latest real estate tech entrepreneur interview, we’re speaking with the co-founder of Latchel, Ethan Lieber.

Without further ado…

What do you do?

I help property managers and landlords grow their income streams. Latchel was created with that goal in mind. Latchel gives them more bandwidth to focus on business growth by coordinating maintenance for them. We take over the process end to end. Everything from taking and troubleshooting tenant calls at all hours, scheduling contractors to do work, confirming work was completed, and getting invoices for work. Software and process technology is a big part of how we’re able to coordinate so efficiently and cost effectively.

I love where we are as a company because we’re the only end to end solution for property managers and landlords that want to reduce the time and money they spend on maintenance coordination. We’ve gotten so good at what we do that our customers can efficiently manage maintenance on over 400 doors with only a single admin in their office.

What problem does your product/service solve?

Property management companies and landlords face a huge problem coordinating maintenance. It often prevents them from increasing the size of their portfolios and generating additional income. It is one of the biggest costs of being in the property management business and it takes property managers more time to resolve than any other issue. It is the number 1 reason that landlords turn to property managers for help and it is the number 1 reason that property managers across the US turn to Latchel for help.

They’re so busy dealing with emergencies that the routine work falls through the cracks, which leads to bigger problems down the road. Latchel takes all that coordination off their hands and we do it for less than 1/3 the cost of hiring an employee.

What are you most excited about right now?

We recently won the Seattle Angel Conference. I know the whole team is pumped about that and it validates where we’re heading as a company.

We have a service update that I’m also very excited about. In December, we’re launching a Night & Weekend emergency service specifically for landlords with one to nine rental homes. Tenants call us during nights and weekends, our team diagnoses if it is an emergency, and if it is then we dispatch an emergency contractor and ensure the issue gets fixed. We also take a credit or debit card on file so the payment to the contractor is seamless. I’m targeting California property investors right now, but hope to expand that out soon to rentals across the US. I’m excited because I think it is a hugely valuable service that will introduce landlords to Latchel. It only costs $180 for an entire year and Latchel will take all your night and weekend tenant calls. I’d gladly pay $0.50 a night knowing that I get uninterrupted sleep.

Currently, we’re pre-selling this service with a huge discount. If you go to https://latchel.com/preregistration/night-and-weekend-emergency-service and use Promo Code EARLYBIRD then you’ll get 73% off. You get an entire year of night and weekend emergency dispatching for less than the cost of 10 Starbucks lattes. I’m a major caffeine addict (over 600mg a day), but even I couldn’t resist an offer like that.